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Dictatorships - The great war and the bolshevik revolution

Prior to World War I, therefore, the problems of unrest and disorder
were seen as the manifestations of politically immature people,
irresponsible individuals, or bandits. The postwar threats of
nationalism and communism, unlike these previous disruptions, served to
threaten the whole international system that the western nations
operated within and forced American leaders to develop new approaches to
these questions. In response to the broad revolutionary challenges of
the 1910s, particularly the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, a persistent
concern with order and stability emerged among American officials. The
revolutions in Mexico, China, and Russia could easily spread given the
economic and political dislocation that had occurred during the previous
decade. President Woodrow Wilson initially responded to these challenges
with a policy that sought to promote self-determination and political
democracy internationally as the best means to secure American interests
and prevent the further spread of revolution. In 1917, he led the nation
into World War I to destroy autocratic rule and militarism in Europe.
Wilson hoped that by promoting liberal, democratic forces and states in
Europe through his Fourteen Points he could solve the dual problem of
war and revolution. The president placed his faith in the League of
Nations as the mechanism that would allow peaceful, nonrevolutionary
change to occur in Europe and guarantee collective security to prevent
another war and concomitant revolution. The Bolshevik Revolution,
however, shifted the president's attention from his battle with
autocratic rule to the concern with revolution and containing communism.

President Wilson saw Bolshevism as a mistake that had to be resisted and
corrected. He believed that the revolution in Russia was worse than
anything represented by the kaiser, and that the Bolsheviks were a
"group of men more cruel than the czar himself." A
communist regime meant, according to Wilson, "government by
terror, government by force, not government by vote."
Furthermore, it ruled by the "poison of disorder, the poison of
revolt, the poison of chaos." It was, the president believed, the
"negation of everything that is American" and "had
to be opposed." Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby reiterated
Wilson's points when he set out the official United States policy
of not recognizing the communist government in Moscow in August 1920.
Colby wrote that U.S. policy was based on the premise that the
"present rulers of Russia do not rule by the will or the consent
of any considerable portion of the Russian people." The
Bolsheviks had forcefully seized power and were using the
"machinery of government … with savage oppression to
maintain themselves in power." Moreover, the "existing
regime in Russia is based upon the negation of every principle of honor
and good faith, and every usage and convention underlying the whole
structure of international law." It was, therefore, "not
possible for the government of the United States to recognize the
present rulers of Russia."

The policy of nonrecognition was based on the claim that a regime was
illegitimate due to how it came to power and because it was a
dictatorship that ruled by force against the will and interest of the
people. Such nations were, therefore, a threat to American values and
interests in the world. This policy would become a standard American
diplomatic weapon for demonstrating its opposition to left-wing
dictatorships and was used, most notably against China in 1949 after Mao
Zedong's successful establishment of the People's Republic
of China, Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba in 1961, and Vietnam in
1975 after the defeat of South Vietnam, to deny legitimacy, trade, and
international aid to these governments and force political change.

The upheavals of World War I also led to a reevaluation of American
views on right-wing dictatorships after the war. Republican policymakers
rejected Wilson's criticism of autocracy and sought to back any
individual or group they thought could ensure order and stability while
opposing communism and protecting U.S. trade, investments, and
interests. Beginning in the 1920s, American policymakers developed and
institutionalized the logic, rationale, and ideological justifications
for U.S. support of right-wing dictatorships that has influenced
American policy ever since.

American officials first articulated their emerging rationale for
supporting right-wing dictatorships in response to the post–World
War I events in Italy. The United States came to support the fascist
regime of Benito Mussolini based on a view that there was a Bolshevik
threat in Italy and that the Italian people were not prepared for
democratic rule. This unpreparedness and inability at self-government,
American policymakers believed, created the instability that bred
Bolshevism. These beliefs served to legitimize U.S. support of Mussolini
in the name of defending liberalism. America's paternalistic
racism combined with anticommunism to lead American officials to welcome
the coming to power of fascism in Italy. The fascists, they believed,
would bring the stability that would prevent Bolshevism and that was a
precondition for economic recovery and increased trade.

This logic and rationale was quickly extended to other right-wing
dictatorships, often after the overthrow of democratic governments, that
were perceived to meet all of the qualifications for U.S. support:
promise of political stability, anti-Bolshevism, and increased trade
with the United States. The quest for order in a framework acceptable to
Washington led the United States to support Anastasio Somoza Garcia in
Nicaragua, General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez in El
Salvador, Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, and Francisco Franco in Spain, and
the Fourth of August regime in Greece during the interwar years. Similar
to the situation in Italy, the specter of communism and the argument
that the people of these nations were not yet ready for democracy
underlay the United States support for these dictators. Moreover, in
Latin America this policy had another benefit to U.S. officials. It
allowed the United States to find a new means to establish order in the
region without direct military intervention. American forces had
intervened no fewer than twelve times in different nations in the
Caribbean basin. These actions, however, failed to provide long-term
stability. Rather, as Henry L. Stimson, secretary of state from 1929 to
1933, noted, disorder continued to grow. Yet, if the United States tried
to take the lead in the area, Latin Americans complained of American
domination and imperialism. Right-wing dictators provided the desired
solution by providing both imposed order while ending the cry against
American imperialism.

U.S. support for right-wing dictatorships after World War I, therefore,
represented a new development and departure from both the policy of
promoting self-determination and political democracy internationally,
and earlier tolerance of military and authoritarian regimes,
particularly in Latin America. American leaders grew preoccupied by
international order in the wake of the disruption of World War I, the
rise of radical nationalism combined with a decline of Western power, a
questioning of traditional authority in nations, and greater demands for
self-determination. This emphasis on order came to permeate policymaking
in Washington, and the United States found strong-arm rule, the
maintenance of stability, anticommunism, and protection of investments
sufficient reasons to support nondemocratic rulers on the right. The
often-quoted apocryphal statement by Franklin D. Roosevelt concerning
Somoza of Nicaragua, "he may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he is our
son-of-a-bitch," captures the American attitudes and policy
toward right-wing dictatorships. While left-wing dictatorships would be
opposed, those on the right found support in Washington. This
"lesser-of-two-evils" approach to foreign policy,
influenced by racism and at times irrational fears of communism, created
blindness to the shortcomings of right-wing dictators, and led the
United States to support and align itself with many of the most brutal
regimes in the world.

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